Microsoft has been incentivizing its internal divisions to shift from legacy data center space to Azure. So some of that spending is for new servers and data center space to in-source services hosted by third-party providers. Or, in some cases, older Microsoft data centers. More here: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2011/06/01/at-mi...
Robert Scoble of Rackspace also posted photos and video from that initial tour. Since then Facebook has held two media tours of the facility. It's not rare at all, but the media that are just now gaining access are using the usual overhyped headlines to attract eyeballs.
The story is based on DePodesta's talk at the Strata Summit. The video's not posted yet, but there are videos available from many interesting presentations at the Summit, so definitely check out the link Bravura posted to the O'Reilly video page.
Yep. This is old news. But more recently other companies have also decided to implement on-board batteries on their custom servers, most notably Facebook:
And yes, this story was real, despite the April 1 date. I attended the event, and saw the server. It definitely seemed odd to schedule a technology unveiling on April 1, but Google apparently launched Gmail on April 1 as well.
The state of Virginia has actually used money from its tobacco settlement to fund the development of a broadband network in the southern part of the state. That was a key piece of the deal, as there's lots of power and water infrastructure in that area from old factories. Here's more details: